Why did we ever lose Rochester American stations for Detroit stations? I wanted to try Carvel Ice Cream so bad.
A Rogers employee told me that Ottawa used to get the Rochester stations picked up off antenna just east of Toronto somewhere and then transmitted over fibre to their headend in Ottawa. I don't think the Rochester stations were on satellite at that point. At some point it became more operationally cost effective to just use the same American stations from Detroit (or Buffalo). They were available on satellite and were the same ones used by Rogers in southern Ontario and Toronto.
Just a fun fact that was told and I believe is true.
I remember the ads for the Great House of Guitars.
They later (and more recently) tried the same thing with the PBS station out of Watertown but in that case there was a big uproar and politicians got involved and now we have both Watertown and Detroit. Watertown PBS was heavily dependent on donations from many people on this side of the border.